Jobs with Apple

I have spent the last 40 minutes trying to apply for a job at Apple. You may know this company for its reputation for providing intuitive easy to use interfaces, and its slick design. I have been given the link to a job description that looks like a good fit for me by Ollie. Here is the simple step by step process for applying.

NOTE: through-out this, remember that each page request takes about 2 to 3 seconds.

  1. Click on the link 'apply for job'
  2. Get greeted with an Apple Login page
  3. Try to remember apple login. Fail a number of times and resort to the ID reminder tool
  4. Discover that it thinks I have an account with my student email, and lets me reset the password.
  5. Get an email, follow the link within and reset the password, get another email confirming it
  6. Try to log in with the new password — Apple ID not recognized. What?! i just reset this. Fine
  7. Create a New account with a different email address
  8. 'Invalidate characters in Country Code' Huh? Not only is there a 'country' drop down, there is a country code text field. NZ doesnt work. Finally realise it wants the phone prefix for dial NZ numbers.
  9. Log in — successfully this time
  10. Now I have to supply a Resumé. This can be done in two ways, A) a wizard like set of pages or B) paste in an existing one. I have a PDF and it would nice to be able to attach it but no, pasting it is.
  11. Spend 10 minutes reformatting entire CV in a text editor
  12. Paste the newly reformatted CV.
  13. Preview
  14. Save
  15. Now I am greeted with a wizard guiding me through the process of appling for a job. 7 steps? Seems rather complex considering all the information they have already gathered on me
  16. Step 1: Personal Information
  17. Step 2: Position Desired? huh? dont you know this already, I clicked an explicit link on the job I wanted to apply for why has this been forgotten?
  18. Try rolling back to the job description and clicking apply again
  19. Log in. Again — Great, it appears this magnificent site forgets more than just the job you are applying for. Log in again.
  20. Overview of the job application process. Again. Forgotten my personal information too. Sigh.
  21. Position Desired. Ah?! This is just getting silly. There is no field for the Job ID code listed on the job description and the Type of position desired field isnt long enough for the positions name.
  22. Step 3: Now its asking for my resumé details again. Great.
  23. Check back at the origonal login page, find a text box saying
    “To apply without creating an account, go to the General Application.”
  24. Click on the General Application link
  25. Greeted with a form requesting basic personal details (again) and a resumé (again)
  26. Submit
  27. Wonder if this form remembered which job I had tried to apply for.
  28. Stepping back a form tells me that i already have an account with the email address i have supplied and that i should log in to apply for a job with apple
  29. Give up in disgust
  30. Mail.app attains a badge with the number '3' in indicating 3 new emails. Three identical emails from applejobs@apple.com, subject “Thank you! telling me that a generic application has been made and someone from HR will get back to me. Probably to tell me a bunch of jobs I'm not interested in are available
Time Spent
40 Minutes
Jobs applied for
Between 0 and 3, potentially the one i want but unlikely
Frustration level
Insanely high

I think it can safely be said that this whole process has been one of the worst handled web-based systems I have ever had to deal with (and this includes crufty, ugly beasts cooked up by myself or friends that arent even properly debugged). Slow, Forgetful, Long winded and in the end a huge painful barrier against the user. A four year old with BASH powered CGI scripts running on a toaster would produce a system more useable and would respond faster than the steaming pile presented here.

Comments

jim

possibly cos all the good interface designers are working on the OS and won't touch the evil that is HR with a barge pole... unless it is to push them off a cliff

Greg

Hahaha... you'd think a company with such a high focus on useability would do better than that. Maybe its some sort of test...

Paul

Hmmm .... what browser were you using?? Not explorer when you were applying at Appe?

Teir sites probably only set up for Safari!

Brehaut

I was using Safari (its my main browser), i think it's probably more of a case of just bad design.

Hawk Wings » Blog Archive » Quickies: A Sunday Mail.app link fest

[...] Following the posting here of the hunt for people to help Apple’s Mail team with the next version of Mail.app, Andrew Brehaut posts on the frustrations of applying for jobs with Apple . [...]

WordWorks » Apple HR

[...] The hilarious account of trying to put in a job application at Apple using their arcane web interface can be found here. A great read. [...]

stephanie

That is why you have to have inside connections with Apple's recruitment team - it will save you time. ;)